What They Don't Teach You In PR School

Although you learn many useful skills and pieces of knowledge when you major  in PR in college, there are some lessons only the real world can teach you.

The act of balancing, dealing with numerous personality types of clients and coping with the ups and downs in your career are just a few of the many life lessons that a college text book can’t teach you.

For instance, when you do PR plans in college, the teachers never explain that half of the job is how to deal with the many different types of clients you have.

Yep, there are as many different types of clients as there are people and, no, there isn’t a college course that explains in detail how to handle them.

Some clients have no idea what they want -- just what they don’t want. Others are convinced that the folks at Oprah are waiting to put them on the air.

Sadly, learning the patience and obtaining the skills needed to deal with each client’s unique personality only comes from experience and it can’t be taught in books.

A friend of mine – actually a mentor --  is filled with brilliant, new and creative ideas and has enough experience in the business to know the turnout and success of different techniques.

However, she occasionally has clients who have an idea or image in their mind of exactly what they want and refuse to alter it even if it’s unrealistic.

Even worse: even though my friend is a recognized expert in PR, some of her clients insist they know more than she does.

Also, she often finds herself with an idea that she knows will be successful and effective that the client is reluctant for some reason.

Dealing with conflicting views and opinions can easily become frustrating. However, most clients are extremely cooperative and establishing the connection needed to do a great job is relatively effortless.

Either way, it is crucial to keep business and friendships separate – another thing they don’t teach in PR school.

In every business, at every job, you will have some form of success and some form of failure. Dealing with failure, accepting it as a part of life and not taking it too personally is the tricky part.

On the other hand, learning to use each opportunity as a way to grow and improve is something that comes with time.

But they don’t teach that in school either.